FEATUREon. Either way, it’s not effective to raiseawareness or change employee behavior.

Shorter training spread over time addresses
both of these employee reactions and—
provided you create relevant, engaging, and
actionable training resources—will have a
lasting impact.

AT: What do you think makes for
effective, shorter training?

ML: I’ll give you an example of what
we’re doing at Freddie Mac. In early Q1

each year, we provide
web-based training on
the Code of Conduct
that is mandatory
for all employees.

Historically, that
training was close
to one hour. We’ve
shortened it to a

20-minute course
and use short videos
featuring senior
management members
telling personal stories from their careers
dealing with ethical issues. It’s more
personal and it’s impactful for the audience.

We follow that with periodic messaging
on our intranet and with targeted topical
messaging via email containing short videos
or cartoon features. Ultimately, we’ll make at
least eight “impressions” on each employee
over time, so they don’t have an opportunity
to forget our message.

AT: All this talk sort of assumes that
the training is delivered via the web, not in
person. What’s your sense of when in-person
training is a better route to follow?

ML: I have always thought thatweb-based training is the best vehicleto establish a baseline of understandingfor the masses. It’s your college 101-levelcourse. It’s not going to make anyonean expert, but a well-crafted programis going to ensure everyone knows thebasics. In-person training is your collegeupper-level course. They are more detailed,ideally are discussion-based, and interactive.

In-person training involves more applicationof concepts—like “what would you do inscenario X if these variables occurred?”When I was at Boeing, we had avery impactful in-person training forall employees. It was called EthicsRecommitment andinvolved leaderstaking their teamsthrough videoethics scenarios,identifying issues,and discussingwhat happened,what should havehappened, and howsuch problematicsituations could beavoided. All 170,000

employees completed this exercise at the
same time and on the same day each year. It
was a powerful leadership statement to show
the importance of ethics to the enterprise.

While not on the scale of Boeing, we are
doing something similar at Freddie Mac that
we call Integrity Building Blocks.

AT: Let me follow up on that by asking
what have you seen that makes for better
in-person training?

ML: I’ll refer back to my earlier comment
that all training must be relevant, engaging,
and actionable. It’s the same with in-person
training. The simplest approach is to
keep it interactive. No employee wants to
be lectured to, and information is better
retained if it’s obtained through experience.

If you can take a group of employeesThe simplest approachis to keep it interactive.No employee wantsto be lectured to, andinformation is betterretained if it’s obtainedthrough experience.